would feel quite at home.

The air at National Sports Club, full of triumphant groaning, would also be rocked with dozens of spectators chanting "Gorby!, Gorby!''.

It's a familiar eruption of spirit each time Alan Gorbutt steps onto the pitch, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a former Soviet leader.

The cry is also heard on Sunday afternoons from October to April when Gorbutt joins his Police team-mates in battle.

"It's always nice to get the cheering,'' he said with a chuckle. "My wife is always one of my biggest cheerleaders, I think she's the one who starts it off.'' Gorbutt, one of the local game's most popular and well-liked players (he was given the outstanding sportsman award after last season), steps out for his sixth Classic in less than two weeks. The highlight came in the championship tilt last year when he was a late addition to a Barbarian side depleted when several players left Bermuda the day before the big match.

"They didn't really think they'd do as well as they did,'' said Gorbutt. "So obviously with the team making the final they were pretty stuck for guys.'' Said Barbarians captain Allan Martin: "I came off to let him on. I just wanted to give everybody a chance to have a game.'' Gorbutt spent the last 15 minutes of the match hoping to preserve a razor-thin five-point lead which turned out to be good enough for Barbarians' first title and stall the All Blacks drive for five straight championships.

"Obviously the adrenalin is going, but I didn't really think I was going to get into the game,'' Gorbutt said. "Because it was such an exciting game I thought nobody would want to come off.

"Let's face it, you don't get those opportunities every day of the week.'' The 37-year-old Gorbutt has been a natural fit for the tournament, playing rugby since only "the ripe old age of 25''.

He's unique in other ways, too. His hobby for the last 25 years -- a passion, really -- has been collecting fine china.

Sources say minor rumblings occur when he wishes to visit antique stores on rugby tours.

Gorbutt mostly collects royal memorabilia, and he's not unlike Classic organiser John Kane -- they both seem to thrive on relics of the past.

(Some even wonder whether Gorbutt would actually prefer to win the Plate final, rather than the Classic championship.) "Collecting china and playing rugby, it's an odd combination really,'' said Richard Raistrick, Gorbutt's team-mate on this year's Bermuda side and a long-time foe as a member of Teachers.

The powerfully-built Gorbutt, six-foot-four and 230-pounds, has been a rare find ever since members of the Police rugby team coaxed him into playing in 1983.

That happened a year after he arrived here from his native England. He was thrust onto the pitch after only a couple of practice sessions.

"Obviously being tall and big I was labelled a second row lock right away, not knowing what the position really was,'' said Gorbutt. "But I really enjoyed it. I was quite fit then so at least I had a bit of pace and a bit of running ability which always helped.'' It didn't take long for Gorbutt to become one of the Blues' strongest assets.

"He's a mainstay, he's always been there,'' said Police team-mate Dan Cozens, calling Gorbutt the quintessence of what Police rugby is all about. "He always has a smile on his face even when the chips are down. Then he tries twice as hard.'' Keiron Peacock, national team coach and skipper of Bermuda's team in this year's Classic added: "He's a terrific contributor, always positive, can't do enough for you. He's a good man to have on your side. He would never ever let you down.

"He's always keen to go out there and do the best he possibly can. He's like that as a person, too. He's always willing to help, if you want something done Alan's the first guy who offers to help.'' Growing up in Liverpool, noted more for its passionate soccer followers than rugby fans, Gorbutt's interest in the game never really took flight.

"I came from a rugby area but unfortunately the school I went to, rugby just wasn't on the programme. I sometimes wish I would have started younger, but then again I might have petered out by now.'' Gorbutt, a devoted family man, lives in Warwick with his wife Susan and daughter Alexandra. He now invests a great deal of his soul in the game, but wonders whether he appreciates rugby's storied past in the same way many of his Classic team-mates do.

"I probably don't as much as other people who obviously have come from a rugby environment,'' he said. "I mean, obviously, people who've lived in England and grown up with rugby and know all these `oldie goldie' guys who come up now for the Classic, I think how it's a shame that I haven't sort of known who any of them are. But I do appreciate them for who they are and I understand that they were fabulous in their day.'' Raistrick and others appreciate Gorbutt more as a team-mate than someone they sometimes see on the opposite side of the field.

"He'll kill me for saying this, but he's a gentle giant,'' said Raistrick.

"He's his own player and he just gets on doing what he has to do.

"You know he's going to try his best. He's going to win line-out ball for you and he's also strong.

"He goes onto the field and he's very quiet and he just gets on with it in the fairest possible sense.'' Later Gorbutt said: "The social side of every Classic is great. Meeting different people from different countries. There's always new faces and new friends to meet.'' And there's always the chance someone might have a hot tip on some antique china.